


Weep Not For the Memories

by fortunata13



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Angst, F/F, Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunata13/pseuds/fortunata13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which a crisis in Aydindril forces Kahlan to turn to the leader of D’Hara for help. Along the way she is flooded with memories of her passionate friendship with a young Mord’Sith who would eventually become her lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weep Not For the Memories

Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor of the Midlands, gazed out the window of her carriage, already able to see the distant silhouette of the People’s Palace against the midday sky. From her current vantage point, it brought to mind childhood memories of fairytale palaces and distant lands that lived only in her imagination. If life bore any semblance to those stories, a golden-haired princess would greet her with a smile and a warm embrace, she mused. Only life had taught her long ago to push aside childish things in favor of the harsh realities of this cruel world.  
  
  
This visit to D’Hara was the first she’d made since the fall of Darken Rahl, what seemed like a lifetime ago. While it should have been her husband, Richard Rahl, who sat on the throne of D’Hara, he’d refused to take the title. The current Lord Rahl was a patriot, but not a rightful heir to the throne. It was the looming threat of civil war and the general chaos throughout the entire nation that prompted D’Hara’s now well-respected leader to take the helm. The people followed out of desperation at first but eventually began to appreciate the notable difference between tyranny and leadership. D’Hara had no diplomatic ties with other nations but respected their borders and provided aid when it was requested of them.  
  
The Mother Confessor had unsuccessfully explored every conceivable solution to the crisis her nation faced before, out of sheer desperation, requesting an audience with the Lord Rahl. It wasn’t pride or rancor that made her so hesitant to reach out to the one person whom she knew could help her, it was shame. Kahlan Amnell was a woman of honor who, all of her life, strove to uphold the principles of her station, but she was guilty of one devastating betrayal. In just a few candlemarks, she would find herself at the mercy of the Lord Rahl of D’Hara to whom she had made a thousand promises, only to break them a thousand times over. She was suddenly overcome by a shimmering flow of emotions as the vivid images of the events of that morning, nearly fifteen summers ago, invaded her mind, just as they had so many times before.  
  
 _It was always the light that came to her first. There was a golden quality about the light that morning that was not at all typical of Aydindril. It made the world around her seen more real, more intense somehow, and far more beautiful than it had ever been before. Then she noticed it, a faint impression of red, a figure slumped over a horse just a few paces in front of her. “Mord’Sith,” she mumbled to herself, just as the rider slid off the saddle and crumbled at her feet.  
  
“Spirits, you’re just a girl,” she said, kneeling beside the badly beaten Mord’Sith whose hair had obviously been roughly hacked off. She could not have been much more than fourteen summers old. Kahlan knew she should be calling for members of the Home Guard to come deal with this dangerous intruder but she could not bring herself to do it. Instead she ran to the stables, filled a waterskin, and shoved a blanket and some bandages into a pack.  
  
“Where are you off to, Confessor Amnell?” asked the stablehand as she zipped past him.  
  
“On an adventure,” she replied, without looking back at him. Already used to the Amnell girl’s antics, he smiled and shook his head.  
  
She took in huge inhalations, trying to return the air to her lungs, then lifted the girl’s head onto her lap and pressed the waterskin to her lips. The tiny Mord’Sith coughed and opened her eyes. “Don’t drink it so fast,” Kahlan admonished, albeit gently. The girl nodded, never taking her eyes off Kahlan. “Who did this to you?” Kahlan asked, as she wiped blood off the girl’s face with a damp cloth.  
  
“Villagers,” she said, then coughed out a mouthful of blood. “They attacked my sisters and me. There must have been at least fifty of them.” The girl looked up for a long moment, then said, “You’re a Confessor. Are you going to kill me?”  
  
“I promise I won’t kill you, if you promise you won’t kill me.” The Mord’Sith nodded in agreement. Kahlan covered her with the blanket and watched as she drifted into sleep.  
  
“Mord’Sith, Mord’Sith,” Kahlan whispered, nudging her on the shoulder just as the sun had set behind them. When the girl opened her eyes Kahlan stared at her for a moment, “Spirits, your eyes are brighter than the sun,” she said. “What is your name?”  
  
“Cara Mason,” she said.  
  
“I have to get you into the Palace, Cara Mason. That cut on your leg is festering. We’ll have to be very careful so that no one sees you.” Kahlan wrapped her arm around Cara’s waist, and Cara slung hers over Kahlan’s shoulder.  
  
The young Confessor led them down a passage she had only recently discovered. They were just a few paces away from her door when Kahlan’s little sister called out to her. “I’m busy, Dennee. I’ll go to your room in a little while.” The Mord’Sith hid behind a pillar, struggling to support her own weight.  
  
“Busy with what?” Dennee asked, but noticing her sister’s murderous glare promptly stalked away.  
  
The minute her sister turned the corner, Kahlan scooped Cara up and rushed into her room, locking the door behind them. “You’re very strong,” she said, “you would make an excellent Mord’Sith.” Kahlan giggled in response.  
  
Kahlan carefully loosened the laces of Cara’s leathers and stripped them off of her. “Cover yourself with this,” she said, wrapping a blanket around the naked girl. “I’m going to have someone draw you a bath, but you are going to have to stay out of sight.” In less than a candlemark she was soaking in a tub of warm water while Kahlan washed her hair.  
  
“I don’t hate you,” the Mord’Sith said, when they were tucked in bed next to each other, “I’m supposed to but I don’t.”  
  
“Good, because I don’t hate you either. Now go to sleep. We’ll figure out what to do, tomorrow.”  
  
For the next two weeks, aside from her lessons, Kahlan spent all of her time with Cara. She tended to her wounds, brought up food for her from the kitchen, and held her in her arms at night. They both would have happily continued that way forever. The impossibility of it became obvious one morning, when a commotion roused them from sound sleep. “I’ll go see what’s going on,” Kahlan said, lunging out of bed.  
  
When she returned, Kahlan was as pale as a ghost and her hands were trembling. “Mord’Sith,” she finally said, “Four of them were spotted a few leagues outside the city.”  
  
“They’ve sent a quad to find me,” Cara said, wincing the moment she put weight on her leg. “I have to go, Kahlan. If I don’t return to the temple, they’ll send even more of them after me.” The Confessor nodded, doing her best to hold back tears as she helped the Mord’Sith lace her leathers.  
  
“Take this,” she said, removing a bracelet with the initials KA from her wrist. “If you never take it off, I’ll always be with you.” She clasped it to Cara's wrist and asked, “Will I ever see you again?”  
  
“You will, I swear it. I’ll return on the next full moon. If I don’t, you’ll know that I’m dead. Only the Keeper himself could stop me.” Kahlan walked her out through the same route she’d used to get her into the Palace. Just as the Mord’Sith was about to mount her horse, she turned to face Kahlan and pressed their lips together. It was a first for them both.  
  
“I love you, Cara Mason. When we are both old enough, I will take you as my mate and you will never leave my side again.”  
  
“Mord’Sith cannot love, but I love you anyway,” she said. Kahlan watched her disappear into a tiny speckle of red in the horizon._  
  
As her carriage came to a halt, she felt as if the fifteen-year old girl she once was, remained at that clearing behind the Confessor’s Palace waiting for the full moon so that she could hold her Mord’Sith again. We were just little girls, Kahlan thought to herself.  
  
“Lord Rahl,” The Mother Confessor said, bowing her head, “thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.” The Lord Rahl nodded in acknowledgment but did not speak, nor turn to face her. Realizing that this was not going to be a warm reunion between old lovers, Kahlan thought it best to get to the point. “The same plague that seized D’Hara three decades ago has now taken hold in the Midlands. My people are dying, Lord Rahl. It is said that D’Hara still holds the cure. If it is so, I ask that you please help save their lives.” The Lord Rahl said nothing.  
  
Instead she rose from her throne, and turning her back to the Mother Confessor, addressed one of her Mord’Sith. “Show the Mother Confessor and her entourage to their quarters.”  
  
“Cara,” the Mother Confessor said, causing the Lord Rahl to stop dead in her tracks, “my five-year-old daughter, Carina Rahl Amnell, is one of those afflicted. If my head is the price for saving her life and that of my people, I am willing to pay it.” The Lord Rahl stood in the same spot for what, to Kahlan, felt like an eternity, then walked away without looking at her.  
  
“Get dressed, and go,” Cara said to the two women who were to have been her lovers for the night. She opted for the company of a bottle of D’Hara’s strongest whiskey instead. Hard liquor and her agiels were how she’d dealt with these memories for years. This night, however, was different. She’d been in the same room with her, heard her voice, heard her own name leave Kahlan Amnell’s lips. She hadn’t had the strength to look at her but it was a weakness for which she felt no shame. Only the Creator knew what it had taken to survive Kahlan’s betrayal. A second shot of whiskey and she was there again, in Aydindril, risking everything to hold her in her arms.  
  
 _“I missed you so much, Kahlan. Spirits, I was afraid you wouldn’t be here,” she said, with the young Confessor’s arms wrapped around her as she pressed kisses to her neck.  
  
“Of course I’m here. I’ve thought of nothing else since you left.”  She lifted Cara’s hand and removed her glove, checking that the bracelet was still on her wrist. Kahlan’s eyes lit up when she saw it. “I’m yours, Cara Mason.” She leaned in for a kiss, this time allowing her lips to part as an invitation. They were both blushing furiously when they broke the kiss but another one followed, and another after that and so on for most of the night. Just before dawn they said their goodbyes, both promising that someday there would be no goodbyes between them.  
  
_ Cara continued to visit the Confessor month after month. Those short hours that they’d spent together by the light of the moon were happy ones. It wasn’t enough, of course, but they didn’t allow themselves to dwell on what they didn’t have, choosing, instead, to enjoy their time together. Sadly, as it happens in this life, especially to those who are too young, or too powerless to defend themselves, they learned at a young age that even those who are pure at heart are not spared from cruelty.  
 _  
“Cara, what’s wrong? Talk to me, please,” the young Confessor said. The Mord’Sith was sullen and distant. She’d flinched when Kahlan tried to hold her. “Did I do something wrong?”  
  
It was those words that led her to break her silence, for she could not bear the thought of Kahlan blaming herself, not for this, never for this. Cara gritted her teeth and did her best to recall her Mord’Sith training, but the shame and the self-loathing made it so hard. “I’m with child,” she finally said, unable to meet Kahlan’s gaze. “It’s an honor to be taken for the first time by the Lord Rahl,” she said, with tears streaming down her cheeks, thinking that perhaps echoing the words of the sister who tried to console her upon leaving the Lord Rahl’s quarters would ring true this time.  
  
“By my honor, I swear to you that he will die by my hand for this, Cara.” She held the Mord’Sith in her arms and they wept until the sun came up. Kahlan kept her word. Years later, she drove a dagger through his heart. “This is for Cara Mason,” she said, “I only wish I could kill you a thousand times over.”  
  
Even as her belly grew heavy, she continued to leave the temple while her sisters slept so that she could be with Kahlan. Those few hours each month were what kept her going during the pregnancy. Kahlan loved her and she even managed to love the child growing inside her. When a month went by, and then another without a visit from Cara, she knew that the child must have come. The despair that she felt during that time was far more than one so young should have ever experienced, but whenever she pitied herself, thinking of what Cara must have been living through made her push aside what she deemed as her own selfishness.  
  
“What happens when a Mord’Sith has a child?” Kahlan asked during one of her lessons. The response she was given made her keel over and vomit in the study hall.  
  
After a four month absence, Cara finally returned. It was on that night that sixteen-year-old Kahlan Amnell and fifteen-year-old Cara Mason made love for the first time. The possibility of confession was never discussed, for that they loved each other was the one thing in this life that they both knew beyond doubt. Kahlan never spoke of the child and Cara loved her all the more for it.  
   
Still, it was as if all of creation conspired to tear them apart. Only a few months later, Cara was ordered to return to the People’s Palace. She would no longer be at a temple just a few hours away from Aydindril. At full gallop, without stopping for more than a few hours of sleep, it was at least a fortnight that separated Aydindril from D’Hara. Cara’s heart ached, knowing the look she’d see on Kahlan’s face when she told her.  
  
“Let’s run away, Cara. We’ll start a new life together,” Kahlan said. Only to be reminded that Darken Rahl would call on the bond to force Cara back and then subject her to days, if not weeks, of torture.  
  
After that they only saw each other a handful of times a year. Cara would get messages to Kahlan by bribing servants or paying vagrants to deliver her missives. But just as it had always been, they managed to be happy whenever they were together, to make plans even, to talk about a shared future. Kahlan decided that their first child together would be called Carina but she hadn’t made up her mind about the other two. Before they even realized it, they weren’t girls anymore, they were young women. Nothing other than their love for each other stayed the same._  
  
It was the sound of the glass she hurled across the room shattering into a thousand pieces that brought Cara back to the present. They had loved each other, and that made it all so much worse. Now she held the lives of Kahlan’s people in her hands. Much like all those years ago Kahlan held her life in her hands. It had all finally come full circle. “Carina Rahl Amnell,” she said the name aloud and she wept, she wept as she’d only done in Kahlan’s arms. She could not help but wonder if the Seeker, the true Lord Rahl, knew that his daughter had been named after a Mord’Sith who also happened to be his wife’s former lover. Richard Rahl, how she hated him, for he had everything that should have been hers. The woman she had loved all of her life, the family she would never have, even the bond to the D’Haran people whom she had brought out of despair and certain destruction were his.  
  
Sleep would not come to Kahlan on that night either. While Cara had the presence of mind to know that looking at Kahlan’s face would be the end of her, Kahlan had not been able to stop herself from taking in every detail of the Mord’Sith, of searching for remnants of that fourteen-year-old whose eyes had been as bright as the sun. To see her, to stand only a few paces away from her and not be able to hold her, to tell her that for her it was still the same, that she loved her and that if she could, she’d choose differently this time. But even the guilt of thinking about such things while her daughter fought for her life and her people where dying, could not keep her from drifting into the past.  
  
 _“D’Hara and the Midlands are at war, Cara. There is a prophecy about the first true Seeker of Truth in a thousand years. My sister and I are going to find him.”_  
  
“Kahlan, no,” Cara pleaded with her, “Darken Rahl is too powerful, I’ve seen what he does to his enemies. If anything were to happen to you I’d…”  
  
“We’re not little girls anymore. I’m a Confessor, it’s my duty to protect the Seeker.”  
  
“So this is how it ends?” Cara asked, with tears in her eyes.  
  
“Cara, no, you’re everything to me,” Kahlan said, pulling her into a kiss. “This is just goodbye, for now. I will find the Seeker, and Darken Rahl will pay for what he did to you.”  
  
Only so much more than she could have ever imagined happened over the next two years. Cara loved her, yes, but she was Mord’Sith and bound by the bond to obey the Lord Rahl. It was the raid on Valeria, where Kahlan’s own sister lost her life at Cara’s hands, that marked the beginning of the end for the two of them.  
  
“Confess me, I deserve it,” Cara said, with tears in her eyes. Kahlan stood there with her hand wrapped around the throat of the Mord’Sith who by then had been her lover for almost half her life. It was the remorse she saw in those eyes, which were still as bright as the sun, that caused her to spare Cara’s life, not the love they shared. Kahlan eventually forgave her and, once again, they found their way back to each other.  
  
In the end, it was the burden of being the last Confessor that led Kahlan into Richard’s arms. They fought side by side for almost two years, and Richard made no secret of his feelings for her. They even saved the world together, and much like Cara, he loved her so much that confession wasn’t a possibility. By then, she and Cara hadn’t seen each other for nearly a year. It took time but she talked herself into it, she accepted Richard’s proposal.  
  
The news of the Mother Confessor taking the Seeker as her mate traveled across all of the territories. It was all anyone spoke about, but Cara didn’t believe it, not for a single moment did she think it true. She traveled to Aydindril, arriving on the day of the supposed nuptials convinced that Kahlan would be waiting for her, only she wasn’t. Cara stood in that clearing behind the Confessor’s Palace and watched the girl she’d loved since she was fourteen years old take Richard Rahl as her mate.  
  
She sat there and waited, for she knew she would come. They’d shared too much at that very spot for Kahlan to stay away. She was right.  
  
It was moments after the wedding that she realized what she had done and what it would do to Cara. By the time she reached the clearing, her face was already streaked with tears. Just as Cara knew she would come, Kahlan knew Cara would be there waiting for her.  
  
“Why?” she asked, but Kahlan didn’t have an answer. All of the reasons she’d given herself for months vanished from her mind.  
  
Much to her own astonishment, the only words her lips were able to form were ‘I don’t know.’  
  
“Do you love him?” Cara asked.  
  
“No, not how I love you, of course not,” she said.  
  
“But you gave yourself to him,” Cara said. Kahlan could not deny it. At the Pillars of Creation, when they saved the world, she had lain with Richard and she was already carrying his child.  
  
Cara didn’t say a word, she stood there, feeling the sting of tears, as she tried to memorize the face she’d loved for years, the face she would never look upon again.  
   
So much of this was my own arrogance, Kahlan thought to herself. Although she knew much more of it was simply life, coupled with the impossible circumstances they’d faced. That it lasted as long as it did was in itself, an impossibility. At that moment, Kahlan Amnell, the Mother Confessor of the Midlands, recognized her own limitations and surrendered herself to whatever was to come. She had no fight left in her. The lives of the people she was sworn to protect and that of her own child where hanging in the balance, but she would not fight anymore. A lifetime of fighting is what had brought her to this moment. All she wanted now was to make peace with the person whom in this life she'd loved, and hurt, the most.  
  
“Please ask your Lord if she will see me for a moment,” she said to the first Mord’Sith she saw.  
  
When Cara heard the request she thought for a long moment. She remembered all of it, and all of it hurt. The good hurt even more than the bad, but it occurred to her that maybe if she listened to what Kahlan had to say, it would stop. Maybe the heartache over Kahlan would finally come to an end. Maybe beyond the door, she’d find peace after years of torment.  
  
“Show her in,” Cara said.  
  
Kahlan walked in, and with every bit of strength she had in her, Cara looked her in the eyes. Just as she thought it would, doing so felt like dying, but she didn’t look away. “Sit, please,” Cara finally managed to say.  
  
Kahlan worried her lower lip for several breaths before finding the sound of her own voice. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. You deserved so much better from me, from life, than what you received. My men and I will leave in the morning; I have no right to ask anything of you.” She got up and turned to leave.  
  
“What you need to save your people has already been loaded into a wagon, and more is available if you need it,” Cara said. She had never considered denying Kahlan.  
  
A corner of Kahlan’s lip curled up into a sad smile. “You were always so much nobler than me,” she said.  
  
“It was from you that I learned to be a leader, Kahlan. I would not have allowed your people perish.”  
  
Kahlan took a step to close the distance between them, then lifted Cara’s hand and removed the glove that covered it. It was still there, the bracelet with Kahlan’s initials, just as she knew it would be. “There hasn’t been a single moment since my wedding that I haven’t hated Richard for not being you. It’s unjust, I know, but it’s the truth. It has always been you, Cara. I don’t know why I did what I did, but I never stopped loving you.”  
  
Cara furrowed her brow, and asked, “Would it be wrong of me to ask if I can hold you for a moment?” Kahlan took the Lord Rahl by the hand and led her to the bed.  
  
Cara undid the laces of Kahlan’s white dress just as she had countless times before, and Kahlan freed Cara of the Mord’Sith leathers that, even as Lord of D’Hara, she still wore. They lay awake wrapped in each other’s arms the entire night. For the first time in years, or perhaps ever, they were both at peace.  
  
Kahlan left for Aydindril the next morning but they both knew that whatever they’d lost so many years ago, they’d gotten it all back.  
  
The End


End file.
